Green politics needed more than ever

ALL across the world we are seeing climate breakdown and extreme weather events. Temperatures are soaring while oil and gas company profits are hitting record levels.

Every day my office is contacted by people who are worried about what is to come. Many of them are seeing the impact of runaway inflation on their supermarket shelves and don’t know how they will cope.

A lot of people are scared that they will soon be unable to pay their bills or feed their children. Some are already spreading themselves over multiple jobs and are stretching themselves to their limits every day but are still struggling to make ends meet.

We are still rebuilding from two years of trauma and pandemic and, with the cost-ofliving crisis and the climate emergency, we are facing not just one generation-defining crisis but two.

Things could be about to get even worse. Last week, analysts from Cornwall Insight warned that household bills could soon reach £4,200 a year. If the UK Government allows this to happen, or anything close to it, then we will be looking at a social emergency beyond anything that this country has experienced for generations.

As an MSP and a minister, I have seen the power we have to make changes that improve people’s lives. But I have also seen how constrained our Parliament is and the ways in which we are being held back.

The reality is that the big economic levers that we need do not lie with Holyrood. They are with a cruel and incompetent Tory Government that is more concerned with its cronies, donors and oil company profits than with the wellbeing of the people it is supposed to represent.

These are urgent and unprecedented times, and they need an urgent and unprecedented response.

This time last year we could have taken the easy route out and stepped back into the comfort of opposition. But we didn’t. We rolled our sleeves up, got stuck in and delivered.

This Thursday will make it one year since my Green colleague Patrick Harvie and I joined the First Minister in Bute

House to present the co-operation agreement between the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Government.

It had been a long road to get there, but Patrick and I were days away from becoming the first Green ministers anywhere in the UK. As I stood at my podium and looked at all of the journalists and the cameras, I knew that it was not just a historic moment for our party and our movement, but also for Scottish politics.

The SNP and Greens are different parties with different histories, identities and outlooks. Even entering into talks had represented a big leap of faith from both parties but, after a long and sometimes difficult summer of negotiations, what we produced was a bold and progressive vision.

Over the days that followed, we held open meetings with party members and fielded hundreds of questions. Some of them were challenging, and we understood why: what we were presenting to them was something that had never been done before. There were some people who wrote us off and said it would never last but, 12 months later, we have proven them wrong. We have not just delivered a photo-op or a good news story, we have delivered a positive, durable and robust programme for Government.

With Greens in

Government we have put climate change and the cost of living at the heart of policy. We have turned words into action and our long-term Green policies into reality. In January, we introduced free bus travel for everyone under 22, which has opened up Scotland for young people and their families while saving money and cutting emissions. It was a long-term Green priority that is now available all over Scotland.

In June, I was proud to announce an end to support for new incinerators. This was another Green priority and came on top of a ban I introduced on many of the worst single-use plastics. We have also doubled the Scottish Child Payment at a time when Westminster has cut Universal Credit by £1,000 a year, and made record investments in recycling, wildlife, nature restoration, and infrastructure for walking, wheeling and cycling.

These are real changes. They are the sorts of changes that you can only make when you have a seat at the table, and the kinds of changes that I entered politics to deliver. They are only the start.

Over the years ahead we will deliver even more of our programme, while making the longer-term structural changes that our country so badly needs.

But I also know that this is only the start of our journey.